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Month: March 2016

This has been a topic of conversation among my peers for a while now. I’m hurtling towards the big 3-0 like nobodies business, whereas most of my friends are in their mid twenties but even though we’re not quite the same age, we all have the same decision to make eventually – to have children or to not have children.

For generations, society has dictated that when girls grow up, they become child bearers, mothers and wives. In more recent years, the ‘you can have it all’ movement gave way to women deciding to shun the typical route of getting married and having children instead to focus on being career women first and mothers second.

I am part of a group of women who have not only shunned society’s labels of wife and mother and career woman. I am simply ME.

At 29 years of age, I am at my childbearing peak. In a few years my eggs will start to dwindle and my chances of becoming pregnant get lower. But, for me, this isn’t an issue because I am consciously CHILD FREE. I do not want to have a baby, ever.

My Mother’s Mother wasn’t a maternal lady. She wasn’t a natural mother, but in the 50s, women had babies, that’s just what they did. My own Mother has said that she too didn’t have a maternal instinct (despite having myself and my elder sister) and if she had her time again, she probably wouldn’t have had children. I don’t blame her for saying that, I know how hard she has toiled bringing up my sister and I.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your stance, mental illness is a family issue for me – it’s in both sides of my family (thanks Mum, thanks Dad!) and I also have a physical (inherited) disability. Knowing that I have inherited these conditions really has made me consider how this may affect my own offspring.

Making the decision to not have children has been an incredibly easy decision for me. Mostly, because like my Mum and Grandma, I seem to have missed the ‘maternal instinct’ gene (if there is one). I see babies and I recoil. The noise they make sounds like nails down a chalk board and I hate bright colours. I hate everything to do with children – the tv shows, the Pixar movies, the nursery rhymes, the toilet training, the school run and most importantly, childbirth.

I have absolutely no interest in carrying a baby in my (poorly designed) body. Having an inheritable connective tissue disorder comes with its own problems so being pregnant whilst having EDS is no mean feat. I can’t run about like I’d need to with a child, I can barely hold my 1 year old Nephew for more than a minute before I’m in excrutiating pain, so physically I know I wouldn’t cope being a mother.

And most importantly for me, I’m too selfish. I love sex, travel and antiques. My partner and I are planning on restoring a Victorian house at some point in our future. You simply can’t do that and afford to pay for a child too. We’re both in our late twenties, I can’t work so we’d be relying on his salary. It’s just too much.

Thankfully, I’m with a man who, like me, has little interest in having his own offspring. He is a Primary School teacher, so loves to come home at the end of the day to peace and quiet. His job as a teacher is extremely fulfilling and he loves imprinting knowledge on the young. Thankfully for me, we’re both on the same page when it comes to being child-free.

You may notice I use the term childfree rather than childless, because to me, I am free of children. I am not ‘less’ – if anything, I can be more than just a Mum. I’m not saying there is anything at all wrong with women who want to be Mums. I just know in my heart of hearts that I wasn’t born to bring a child into the world. I want to travel the world while I’m able to (my condition is degenerative), I want to buy luxurious sofas and thick carpets that aren’t going to have paint or pen trodden into them. I want bricks and mortar and to sit by the open fire with my (one day) husband and our cats.

To me, that is the best thing about being a twenty-something; I can choose who I want to be and so can you.

I’m still not 100% sure how comfortable I am blogging about my hidden illness. It’s a difficult thing for me to talk about, as I try not to let my illness define who I am. I started this blog as I’m a huge fan of talking about the things that interest me (like travel, fashion, beauty etc) and I didn’t really want to go down the ‘pity me, I’m ill’ route… but I believe that being a writer is about writing about things that may make the writer or the reader uncomfortable. If I only wrote about the superficial things, I would be doing myself a disservice I think.

So, if you’re not into reading about chronic illness, feel free to skip this blog post and focus on my other topics. If, however, you know someone with a chronic illness, chronic pain or Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, this may interest you!

Last year I paid privately to be seen by an EDS specialist Dr Mittal at St John’s and St Elizabeth’s hospital in London.She suggested I apply to go on the 3 week residential pain management course at Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore.

The three week residential course is designed to help rehabilitate people who live with a chronic illness or chronic pain.

Interestingly, I often hear people use the word ‘chronic’ incorrectly, as if to mean ‘severe’ so let me just say that chronic means long term, not severe. Although, you can have a chronic illness that is severe, the two words aren’t mutually exclusive!

The three week course is run by the NHS and so the waiting list is rather long. It took weeks to apply, to get an appointment and weeks to be assessed.

The assessment took around 2 hours. The first hour or so was a powerpoint presentation by the people who run the course – Psychologists, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists etc.

The 2nd hour was spent with the Psychologist and I have to say, it was the most illuminating and entertaining interview/assessment I’ve ever had.

I won’t lie – my personality is something of a headache for most people and I think I left somewhat of an impression on Andy, the senior Psychologist!

I honestly don’t know how the assessment went – we discussed parts of my personality that probably wouldn’t benefit from being in a group of chronically ill people, because I ‘don’t take fools gladly’ and I struggle with social anxiety. I’ve dealt with my EDS on my own (without any real medical input) for over 10 years, so naturally I’ve built up my own coping mechanisms for dealing with chronic pain.

I do struggle with how to pace myself, so I’m hoping I do get the opportunity to be on the residential course and see if the medical professionals can help me with the things I struggle with – pacing, finding the right exercise for me and sleep issues.

I’ve always had an interest in psychology (although I clashed with my psych tutor in school while studying A Level psychology) so talking to a psychologist was a fascinating experience for me. I’ve never spoken to anyone professionally about my personality issues (I would hazard a guess at Covert Narcissistic Personality Disorder myself) and he did one hell of a job on me! He called my bluff quite rightly, when I said I had low self esteem – and on reflection, I would say I have low confidence, rather than low self esteem.

The one thing he did say was that he found me to be an unusual (rare) chronic illness sufferer in that I don’t ‘live my illness’ – and I agree. We talked about whether or not I used the EDS forums and I explained that I have dabbled but didn’t like the competitiveness of it. I found a lot of people on the discussion boards would list their illnesses like trophies and I wasn’t interested in that. He said I was a ‘role model’ which was perhaps one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. I will remember that for a long time to come.

My assessment at Stanmore was on 19th February. I’ve not heard anything back, but apparently it can take weeks for them to make the final decision on whether or not they think the course is for me.

Whatever the outcome, I’m excited to see what happens with it. I’ll keep you updated on any results of the assessment!

So, as planned I went down to London on Monday with my best friend to try on a pair of Christian Louboutins. We decided to make a day of it, so we had a wondrously lavish afternoon tea in Laduree before going upstairs to the Louboutin boutique.

I had the Othello tea, which was stunning and my best friend had the Marie Antoinette tea.

Next, came the Louboutin boutique….

I originally planned to buy the Pigalles, but found that the Decollete fit a lot more comfortably (pictured left) and then I totally fell for a pair of flats called Rivierina in black patent.

So, the decision is mine. Astoundingly, one of my anonymous followers on Instagram has offered to buy me the Decolletes as a gift, so I’m now going back down to London to one of the main Louboutin boutiques to pick up my new Loubies!

A huge, massive thank you to the Good Samaritan who has bought me my first pair of Christian Louboutins. You have no idea how happy you have made this lady 🙂